Andre the Giant

A fitting tribute to man who was legitimately one of a kind

_André was a superstar. He was the biggest and the greatest superstar this business has ever known, and ever will know. He was André the Giant; he was the one that laid the groundwork for Hulk Hogan, for Stone Cold Steve Austin, for The Rock, for anybody else that walks through the doors of the WWE Universe. It wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for André. And to know him as a superstar and a giant, I remember when I was a fan I used to watch him, and he would put his hand on the top rope and step over, when he was in his p__rime, and I was looking at his leg hanging off the ring, it looked like a Clydesdale. He was bigger than anyone I'd ever seen and I never imagined I'd be friends with him or I'd get to meet him. Fast forward to him being the greatest of all time, as a person, what he went through, I would walk behind him in the airport, and I would hear, "did you see that guy" and very unkind things. And he could hear them, so for him to walk through and be as kind of a person as he was and as gentle a person, because if he'd have been a mean person, there would have been none of us around. Talk about the guy that never got pinned, that would have been the guy. Nobody could have done anything to him. But to know him as a person, and to know, if you could imagine, a little Barbie doll house, every chair he sat in, every bed he tried to lay in, for André to take up a normal fork, it was like a toothpick in his hand. Yet this man had so much compassion, but he could never be comfortable. I'd sit in first class, behind him, and the way the storage bins go up, his head would be tilted. And that was in first class. So he'd have to fly with his head cocked sideways; 14 hours from Kennedy to Japan, and he can't fit in the bathroom, for 14 hours. So to get the whole 360 of what his life was all about, and become that good friends with him, hear what was said about him, how he reacted, he was a very gr...